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Rating: Ever since I got to know it, I've had a strange relationship with Elliott Smith's music.
For a period of time, I find myself listening to it intensely.
Then, for almost a year, I completely forget about it to listen to something entirely different.
Finally, one fine day I fall back into it again, and the room of my solitary music fills with an atmosphere I can't define.
As if all the melancholy of the world comes to visit me when certain songs of his, in particular, knock on my door.
Seeing him live on YouTube, then, something I usually do once I start listening to him again, is not an easy experience… It strikes me the way he presents himself to the public, shy, as if he were arriving at a party to which he wasn't invited, but then his hands on the guitar begin to fly, the uncertain voice, like an evening breeze that has just risen, does the rest..
I chose one of his albums.. which is actually the only one I have in original, in my opinion his best, because it contains the song of his that I love the most.
And it's also the one most imbued, a rare thing in his music, with hope and serenity, before seeing them turn their backs on him forever.
This sort of review-letter (which in the end is neither one nor the other) came out of me, addressed to him, in scattered "verses"..
Singer "treehouse," how are you up there?
Do you still play those songs of yours?
Those songs like they were composed on the phone after the receiver was hung up on the other end?
Do the strings of your guitar still caress the autumn leaves as you once did?
Singer of melodious '60s/'70s nostalgia, with the Beatles in your heart.
Every now and then, just by chance, I come to listen to you, a shining tear of a distracted America of the early millennium.
Take me up there, even when, the bells in celebration, you feel like smiling and dancing for once, the others will forgive you.
I don't often remember you, but perhaps the secret lies all here.
Drugs and alcohol your witnesses to a difficult life to bear.
Your words in the sunlight and those, in solitude, whispered to a moon eventually sent to sleep with a knife planted in its chest.
Your last message on voicemail, your farewell, without words, which left others, for once, hanging on the other end.
Never having really managed to understand that they had spoken, in the background your magnificent music, with an unforgettable, solitary, deeply human heart in exile on the wrong side of love.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Son of Sam (03:04)
Something's happening, don't speak too soon
I told the boss off, made my move, got nowhere to go
Son of Sam, son of the shining path, the clouded mind
The couple killer each and every time
I'm not uncomfortable feeling weird
Lonely leeved, options disappeared, but I know what to do
Son of Sam, son of a doctor's touch, a nurse's love
Acting under orders from above
King for a day
Son of Sam, son of the shining path, the clouded mind
The couple killer running out of time
Shiva opens her arms now
To make sure I don't get too far
I may talk in my sleep tonight 'cos I don't know what I am
I'm a little like you
More like Son of Sam
03 Junk Bond Trader (03:49)
The imitation picks you up like a habit
Riding in the glow of the tv static
Taking out the trash to the man
Give the people something they understand
Mistake a nervous flash for a fine-line smile
Junk bond trader trying to sell a sucker a stock
Rich man in a poor man's clothes
The permanent installment of the daily dose
And you tell me, "fool, you tell it like it is"
Your wall's gone wider than your head trip is
Checking into a small reality
Void as a drug you take too regularly
The apple needs to laugh, the broken crutch
The first two folded at the slightest touch
Brought down like an old hotel
People digging through the rubble for things they can resell
"Happy holidays," said sid the saviour
Believe in love i still favour
I won't take your medicine
I don't need a remedy
To be everything i'm supposed to be
I don't want nobody else
I can do it by myself
We're meant to be together
Now I'm a policeman directing traffic
Keeping everything moving, everything static
I'm the hitchhiker you recognize passing
On your way to some everlasting...
Better sell it while you can
Better sell it while you can
Better sell it while you can
Better sell it while you can
06 LA (03:14)
The gentleman's in the lane
spinning his hat on a cane
stepping out, out for a change
good morning all, it's a beautiful day
the general's are winning a war
seemed suicidal before
you come along, now
I'll protect you long as you stay
LA
morning had to come
I'd be walking in the sun
living in the day
but last night i was about to throw it all away
if patience started a band
I'd be her biggest fan
look at me, I'm talking to you
I don't want the lead in your play
The star's just a part of the scene
the gentelman in green
paying off out on the street
I can't go home, it's not on my way
LA
things I'd never done, cars parked in the sun
living in the day
but last night i was about to throw it all away
last night i was about to throw it all away
last night i was about to throw it all away
last night i was about to throw it all away
08 Stupidity Tries (04:23)
Got a foot in the door
God knows what for
And he'll cut me down to size
Stupidity tries
Everything here is free
Everything but you and me
This painting never dries
Stupidity tries
Savannah shoulder raised a cheer
Color in the sky with ash
Because they found some privateer
To sail across a sea of trash
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him
The truth is otherwise
Stupidity tries
And so I go from floor to floor
Looking for a port of call
Another drunk conquistador
Conquering the governor's ball
I couldn't think of a thing
That I hope tomorrow brings
Oh, what a surprise
Stupidity tries
09 Easy Way Out (02:44)
You'll take advantage, till you think you're being used
'Cause without an enemy your anger gets confused
And I got stuck on a side you know I never chose
But it's all about
Taking the easy way out for you
I suppose
There's no escape for you, except in someone else
Although you've already disappeared within yourself
The invisible man, who's always changing clothes
It's all about
Taking the easy way out for you
I suppose
While I watch you making mistakes
I wish you luck, I really do
With the problem, with the puzzle
Whatever's left of you
I heard you found another audience to bore
Creative thinker, you imagined you were more
A new body for you to push around and pose
It's all about taking the easy way out for you
I suppose
It's all about taking the easy way out for you
I suppose
14 I Better Be Quiet Now (03:35)
wish you gave me a number
wish i could call you today,
just to hear a voice.
i got a long way to go
getting further away.
if i didn't know the difference,
living alone would probably be ok.
it wouldn't be lonely.
i got a long way to go
getting further away.
a lot of hours to occupy it was easy
when i didn't know you yet,
things i'd have to forget.
but i better be quiet now,
i'm tired of wasting my breath
carrying on, getting upset.
maybe i have a problem,
but thats not what i wanted to say.
i prefer to say nothing.
i got a long way to go
getting further away.
had a dream as an army man with an order
just to march in my place
but a dead enemy
screams in my face
but i better be quiet now,
i'm tired of wasting my breath
carrying on, not over it yet.
wish i knew what you were doing.
why you want to do it this way.
so i can't go the distance,
i got a long way to go,
i'm getting further away.
i got a long way to go
getting further away.
15 Can't Make a Sound (04:18)
I have become a silent movie
The hero killed the clown
Can't make a sound
Can't make a sound
Can't make a sound
Nobody knows what he's doing
Still hanging around
Can't make a sound
Can't make a sound
Can't make a sound
Can't make a sound
The slow motion moves me
The monologue means nothing to me
Bored in the role, but he can't stop
Standing up to sit back down
Or lose the one thing found
Spinning the world like a toy top
Til there's a ghost in every town
Can't make a sound
Can't make a sound
Can't make a sound
Can't make a sound
Eyes locked and shining
Can't you tell me what's happening?
Why should you want any other when you're a world within a world?
Why should you want any other when you're a world within a world?
Why should you want any other when you're a world within a world?
Why should you want any other when you're a world within a world?
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Other reviews
By bloomer
Once home, I searched on Internet Movie Database and discovered it was "Needle in the Hay" by a certain Elliott Smith.
A lucid, poetic, dark, inescapable pain, which is evident from the words and yet never descends into despair.
